


Wanderball Week 2016 - Holy Pear Pressure, Bananaman!

by 3amepiphany



Series: Wanderball Week 2016 [4]
Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 21:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9346079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amepiphany/pseuds/3amepiphany
Summary: Blurred limes are easy to cross.





	

**Author's Note:**

> http://omegalovaniac.tumblr.com/post/155933470844/my-deepest-apologies-to-both-criminallynerdy-and
> 
> The final Wanderball Week prompt. Finally. (IT'S SO LATE I'M SORRY)

It wasn’t any kind of secret that a good joke would get Screwball to stop whatever he was doing and laugh. Or even worse, to stop whatever he was doing to drop the punchline.

“Just… Just hang in there!” Wander yelled at the group precariously dangling over the dangerous, super-heated hot tub, hoping that Screwball hadn’t heard him. He looked over at the control box for it, broken and smashed in the fray, and made plans to send a very strongly worded-letter to the manufacturer about how unsafe it was to put the emergency stop button on the same panel as everything else in the event of a tigrex fight. He glanced up at Screwball, struggling to anchor the rope in the shaky trusses and scaffolding. “Dr. Jones! Dr. Jones!”

The banana stopped for just a moment and looked down at him. “Yeah?”

“I’m gonna find a way to shut the hot tub off!”

“The water’s still going to be too hot!” There was a pause and some panicked yells from the Cornucopianans as some of the steel creaked loudly. “Don’t squirm, hold still! Hold still!” Screwball shouted down. “H-....hang on!” He couldn’t say it straight but he managed to stifle his laughter afterwards. The problem that had been presenting itself as of late was the one of inhibition; it was a knee-jerk, reflex reaction and it was getting harder to control. Much visibly harder. And Emperor Awesome had seen that and taken advantage of it, and had been ready for them this time.

Quickly, Wander followed the cords from the controls to the main power supply for the venue, and he found the emergency shut-off switch. Everything went dark for just a moment before the emergency generators kicked on and a few lights flickered back into action. He’d forgotten where they were and despite the railing he took a few steps back and bumped against one of the wheeled camper coolers near the catering table. After getting his bearings, he grabbed the cooler by its handle and dragged it back over to the hot tub, sitting down to kick it over and dumping all of the ice into the now-calming water to cool it off. “Ease them down,” he yelled up at Screwball, and one by one, the Cornucopianans were lowered carefully, all of them landing safely, gratefully, in the tub. In his relief and despite being soaked to the bone, Wander sighed and turned to look back out over the startling expanse in the dim emergency lighting.

The venue sat on the edge of a gorge.

While it was very pretty to look at, there was the distinct awareness that it was sitting on the edge of a gorge. At the very least it made it that much easier to come up and around from the back with the ship, but it was a loss on stealth. So they’d decided to bank it as a distraction to come in from one direction as they snuck into the backstage areas from the opposite side. They had no clue that they’d be in for as tough a fight as it was, regardless. The ship, moored in too close to the wide ravine’s wall, took a bit of a beating and they wondered if they were going to have to assess some structural damage or deal with any holes in the balloon-work by the end of things as they carefully threaded a rope ladder for Wander to use to board land.

The same ladder that was being detached from where they’d hooked it onto the thin fences behind the green room, by Fist Fighters that had boarded the ship and were hoisting the anchor. The top of the ship began to peek up above the edge of the groundwork as the ship slowly started to rise, unmoored.

“Ah, geez,” Wander muttered to himself before dropping into a run at the Fist Fighters holding the end of the ladder. “Fellas, you better hold tight or let go of that ladder, that ship’s gonna bubble up before you’re ready to go with it!” he hollered, approaching them, wet sneakers squeaking.

They turned to look at him, confused.

He felt his footing give, and before he knew it, he had hit the floor, tangled up in a squelching, squishing towel, and tumbling straight towards the railing’ the fist fighters looking on in surprise at this as well as the mooring rope and the ladder being plucked right out of their loose grips and barely having any time to react to either situation. He sailed straight between them, and straight between the gap between the railing and the concrete parquet.

The wall of the gorge here wasn’t an entirely flat drop, thankfully, but it was still frighteningly steep and he came to a stop about thirty yards down, with the side of the ship coming up directly at him. There was nothing for him to reach out and grab and it was bubbling up so fast that he didn’t dare try to leap for the deck, where there were plenty of Fist Fighters waiting - he really only had a moment to press himself hard against the rocks and hope he wouldn’t be smeared like jam on toast as the ship passed.Wander scrabbled for purchase, and got none. He slid, a few rocks and pebbles hitting him in the face and his soggy fur being rubbed uncomfortably backwards and muddied. But then he stopped, his neck at an awkward angle as the knot of his towel cape snagged and caught on a bit of jagged brush. He couldn’t reach for his Hat or he’d definitely fall, or worse.

Awesome, a Fist Fighter, and one of his Knuckleheads from sidestage looked over the edge gingerly, first at the ship, and then down at him as the Fist Fighters that had commandeered it pointed his way. They disappeared, with Awesome yelling, “Time to trash this god awful thing.”

The two Fist Fighters had unmoored the ship looked over the railing for just a moment discussing how they were going to get this interloper up and captured before they heard a voice behind them.

“As much as I know you don’t like being fenced in, they really oughta put a fence or something on the fences,” Screwball said loudly, approaching calmly, hands out and eyes spiraling intently. “Otherwise their safety efforts are fruitless. Boy Wander, how you doing down there?”

“I’m here, but I need help,” came the reply from below, where the curtains of bubbles cascading from the underside of the ship danced, floated, and fell as the ship moved away from the wall of the gorge.

“I got you, just have a bit of a… belay… up here.” He smiled at the Fist Fighters. “Hey, good, an extra hand and an extra hand. Which one of you’s the break hand? ...Either of you have any experience in mountain climbing” There was no response. “Bouldering?” Still no response. “Well. That would explain the way those jokes were, ah, hand over fist. Perhaps I just need a little more finesse here,” he said, and very suddenly the spirals of his eyes shifted, spinning against one another and a little slower than they had been.

The Fist Fighters stood there quietly, waiting for him to continue. So he did. For several long minutes. There wasn’t any laughter though they were fully rapt. It was eerie.

From over the edge, he could hear, “Dr. Jones..!”

“Don’t rush me, Boy Wander, I’m working the room to get to you, you little wallflower.”

“Dr. Jones, I’m losin’ my grip and--”

“Let me get a grip on things up here!” he yelled sharply. Then, to the Fist Fighters, he said, “Listen, normally I’d ask, ‘My rope or yours,’ but I might need you to cut me a little slack this time around. Find us some rope. Cable. Anything, quickly.” They left, dumbly. Screwball leaned over the railing and called down to Wander. “Tough crowd up here, buddy.”

“You’re not,” Wander called up to him. “You’re not forcin’ an act, are you?”

“Like I said, Boy Wander. Tough crowd. At least the fruit were ripe for the picking. But I’m full of aplomb. Don’t drag me down with you, will ya? I’ll crack these knuckles, yet.” He disappeared back over the railing, where Wander couldn’t see him.

His Hat slipped back on his head.

“Gracious,” he muttered to himself as he struggled to catch the brim on the rock face, fast - but just fast enough that his Hat tipped forward and wedged itself between him and the muddy wall. Wander carefully started bobbing for bottles of Orbble Juice, and the Hat graciously supplied him with it so readily that he bit his lip trying to pull the bottle out by the lid using his teeth. And then he nearly dropped it.

Fumbling madly for both the bottle of Orbble Juice and his Hat, Wander had to free his hands up, and he hung there, toeing at the crumbling, loosening rocks and held precariously by the caught towel, though he could feel a small trickle of dirt and pebbles falling as he was no doubt pulling his assist bush out of the wall. He stuffed Hat under the crook of his arm and quickly opened the bottle and fished out the wand, waving it frantically to no avail. With an explosive cough of a breath, he blew the best Orbble he could manage, instead. And it was just in time; as the roots of the bush were pulled with his towel into the Orbble’s protective sphere, dirt fell loosely from them down into the gorge below.  
Very slowly he brought himself back up to the parquet, where Screwball was telling jokes as he was casually tying up a couple of tame Fist Fighters with a length of rope.

“Boy Wander, rope below!” he yelled, and turned to toss the loose end of the rope over the railing, but was surprised when it hit the Orbble and bounced right off. “.....Climb on, buddy!” he said, trying to cover for himself.

“You aren’t supposed to be doin’ that,” Wander said quietly. “It’s not fair on them.”

“...But it’s…. It’s a quiet house, Wander, I can’t just--”

“They’re not laughin’ because they can’t. Like, they physically can’t. Dr. Jones, all you have is a captive audience. That’s… no worse off than what we came here to stop.”

Screwball leaned in close, pressing his nose against the Orbble with a solid amount of force. “Just trying to keep the situation light and bubbly, Boy Wander. A little laughter’s better than a lot of panic, don’t you think?”

“Don’t.” Wander said, watching the wall of the Orbble give pliantly. “Dr. Jones, don’t.”

“Put a smile on, buddy.”


End file.
